Sonny Liston Had Problems with Tall Fighters With Speed

[GhostofDempsey]

Another reason I feel both fights were fixed was how Ali performed against Doug Jones and Cooper just prior to his fight with Liston. Many argue that the Jones/Ali fight could have gone either way, and many even argue that Jones should have won that fight. A considerably smaller Jones who possessed good but not great boxing skills. Cooper knocked down Ali and had him hurt before Dundee opened up a tear in Ali's glove that he had noticed in round one. That bought Ali another 15 minutes of recovery time to defeat a considerably smaller Cooper by TKO. So these two smaller and not as skilled fighters than Liston took it to Ali but we are supposed to believe Ali was just too much for Liston? Liston who fought on with a broken jaw by Marty Marshall and broken nose by Williams suddenly can't handle Clay who was never really a power puncher? Clay couldn't knock out smaller, lesser opponents on his best day, but KO's Liston with one phantom punch while Liston does the worst acting job of any fighter taking a dive.

Liston is highly underrated. He made short work of guys like prime Cleveland Williams, Patterson and Zora Folley. A prime Ali got to Williams towards the end of his career and after Williams had gone through several surgeries to remove a kidney due to a gunshot would that left a bullet in his hip. Ali went 12 rounds with a much smaller Patterson who was nursing a back injury for the duration of the fight. He then went 7 rounds with a considerably older 37 year old Patterson in the rematch who was completely washed up by then.

[OctoberRed]

Both of the Liston/Ali fights were fixed IMO. I've read enough books and articles on Liston and those fights in particular to reach the conclusion that Liston took a dive in the first fight after betting $1M on himself to lose. He was connected to some Vegas gamblers who had it rigged. Read "The Devil and Sonny Liston" for a break down of events leading up to and after those fights. There was also supposed to be a rematch that would have taken place sooner, where Liston was training hard and ready to win, but Ali suddenly claimed a hernia during training to stall for time. The rest is history.

There will always be talk of that, but I'm still on the fence about taking it that far.